Barack Obama to unveil immigration plan next week: White House

Updated: Jan 26, 2013, 12.21 PM IST

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US President Barack Obama will unveil his plans for a comprehensive immigration reform next week which is expected to spell out the legalisation procedure for lakhs of illegal immigrants and lay down steps to attract global talents, including from India.

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama will unveil his plans for a comprehensive immigration reform next week which is expected to spell out the legalisation procedure for lakhs of illegal immigrants and lay down steps to attract global talents, including from India.

"There are certainly indications now that what was once a bipartisan effort to push forward with comprehensive immigration reform will again be a bipartisan effort to do so, because the President firmly believes that it should be. This is not a partisan or ideological pursuit. It's the right thing to do for our economy," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, told reporters today.

Obama's plan is expected to not only to spell out the legalisation procedure for lakhs of illegal immigrants, but also steps to attract the global talents, which would benefit people from countries like India.

He is scheduled to spell out his plan for a comprehensive immigration reform in Nevada next week, Carney said.

Ahead of his announcement, Obama and senior administration officials met yesterday morning with leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to discuss a need to make things fairer for and grow the middle class by fixing the broken immigration system so that everyone plays by the same rules.

During the meeting, Obama noted that any legislation must include a path to earned citizenship.

"The President further noted that there is no excuse for stalling or delay. The President made it clear that he will continue to lead on this issue and that he looks forward to working with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and other key members of Congress in a bipartisan process, as I mentioned earlier, to move this debate forward at the earliest possible opportunity," he said.

The White House announcement comes in less than a week after Obama, in his inaugural address, vowed for a comprehensive immigration reform, which would attract the engineers from countries like India rather than being expelled from the country.

"Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country," Obama said in his inaugural speech.

Addressing the nation moments after being sworn in for his second term by the Chief Justice of the US, on January 21, Obama without giving the specifics, promised that immigration reform would be one of his top priorities for his second term.

While mentioning the talented engineers, the US President was apparently referring to the large number of engineers and technology graduates who are now being forced to go back to their countries either because of the long waiting period for legal permanent residency, popular as Green Card or those not getting H-1B visas.